Gliderpalooza 2013: So Much More Than Gliders
Mike Crowley1 (crowley@rutgers.edu) S. Glenn1, O. Schofield1, F. Whoriskey2, W. Brown3, and…
poster 1900
1Rutgers
IMCS, 2Dalhousie University, 3University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
J. Kerfoot, C. Haldeman, D. Aragon, A. Comeau, R. Davis, J. Pye, N. Beauchamp, K. Morton, N. Fisher, M. Neary, N. Pettigrew, L. St. Laurent, J. Reilly, K. Decoteau, C. Jones, C. DeCollibus, C. Jacubiak, J. Kohut, T. Haskins, N. Strandskov, M. Breece, M. Oliver, G. Kuska, W. Boicourt, D. Gong, R. He, W. Woods, C. Edwards and the U.S. Navy Team headed by C. Szczechowski
“Work hard.
Have fun.
Change the world.”
-
Doug Webb
Introduction
When? September-November 2013
Where? From Nova Scotia south to Georgia
What? 14 Slocum Gliders on 17 deployments within an ocean wellsampled by satellites, CODAR, drifters and moorings to support an
ensemble of ocean models.
Who? Funding: IOOS (MARACOOS & SECOORA), Ocean
Tracking Network, NJ DEP, EPA, Univ. Delaware, NASA, ONR,
OTN, Univ. Maine, College of William and Mary, Univ. of Georgia,
Teledyne Webb, NMFS and the U.S. Navy.
Participants/operators: Dalhousie University, Univ. of Maine,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., Univ. of Massachusetts Dartmouth,
Rutgers Univ., Univ. of Delaware, Univ. Maryland, Virginia Inst. of
Marine Science, North Carolina State, Skidaway Inst., Teledyne Webb
and the U.S. Navy.
Goal 1: Unique Dataset for Modelers
Goal 3: 3D Snapshot of Coldpool
A shelf wide perspective for the MAB through a coordinated range
of regional combined with coastal surveys was collected. All gilders
provided an extensive survey for the hydrographic and optical data
as well as acoustically tracked animal locations. The database spans
from the upstream condition of Canadian waters through the South
Atlantic Bight. The database is enabling studies to improve data
assimilative forecast models.
The goal is to support the
improvement of the ensemble of ocean models.
During summer, a distinctive, bottom-trapped, cold water mass called
the Cold Pool Water (CPW) resides as a swath over the mid to outer
continental shelf throughout much of the Middle Atlantic Bight
(MAB). This evolving CPW is important because it strongly
influences the ecosystem, including several important fisheries. Thus
there is a priority to better understand the relevant ocean processes
and develop a CPW forecast capability.
Espresso Bottom Temp
Observed and modeled temperature and salinity following the trajectory of glider RU23.
OTN200 (2)
10-Sep
OTN201
16-Sep
Penobscot (2)
10-Sep
4 WHOI
Saul
10-Sep
5 U. Mass
Blue
6-Sep
6 Rutgers
RU28
12-Sep
7 U. Maryland
RU22
22-Sep
RU23 (2)
10-Sep
Otis
12-Sep
10 VIMS
Stewart
10-Oct
11 NC State
Salacia
17-Sep
12 Skidaway
Modena
10-Sep
13 T. Webb
Darwin
11-Sep
14 U.S. Navy
Navy1
10-Oct
1
2
Dalhousie
3 U. Maine
8 Rutgers
9 U. Delaware
Gliderpalooza represented a grass-roots coordinated field
demonstration of ocean observing technologies spanning the eastern
seaboard of North America. The overarching goal was to coordinate
disparate ocean research efforts, funded by disparate programs from
a variety of agencies to demonstrate continental scale coordination
of various ocean observing technologies to sample ecologically
relevant scales.
The coordinated data from satellites, CODAR, moorings, drifters
and models was focused on and around the distributed deployment
of Slocum gliders. The seven primary science goals and tasks were
to:
1) provide a unique data set the modelers (real-time & hindcast)
can use for years to come,
2) provide a standardized dataset a over ecological scales and
information on fish/mammal migrations
3) provide a 3-D snapshot of the MAB cold pool,
4) provide an extensive distributed network through the peak
period of fall storms, demonstrating a community "surge"
capacity,
5) provide one, of many demonstrations, of the potential national
glider network,
6) proof of data flow through IOOS to NDBC via DMAC and,
7) engage undergraduates in ocean observing efforts.
Goal 2: Fish/Mammal Migrations
The glider survey was focused on collecting a broad environmental
dataset to provide a broad scale map of the hydrography in which to
interpret major migration patterns. The Ocean Tracking Network
(OTN) is augmenting current capabilities to provide the foundation
for a listening network. The collection of gliders provided a
subsurface spatial snap shot of a Large Marine Ecosystem (LME)
during the Fall migration that was mined by scientists in both realtime and in hindcast mode as nine of the gliders were fitted with
Vemco trackers. This effort is motivated as the region is home to
some of the most migratory fish communities in the United States.
These data from multiple gliders are currently being combined by
OTN. Species locations will be analyzed against the subsurface
glider data as well as available satellite and CODAR assets and
models of subsurface physical parameters to provide a perspective of
the northeast United States Canada ecological domains.
Good
September is the peak month for tropical storm and hurricane landfall
along the Eastern coast of North America. The regional array
provided a comprehensive sampling of the continental shelves, which
are the most undersampled with regards to subsurface temperatures.
This temperature data is increasingly being viewed as valuable in
potentially improving the ability to better predict hurricane intensity
(See Poster Session #009, poster 1904, Using Ocean Observatory
Data to Motivate Hurricane Ocean and Atmospheric Model
Sensitivity Studies in the Mid-Atlantic, by S. Glenn). The 2013
Gliderpalooza dataset will serve as a baseline as it was a quiet
tropical storm season. In 2014-2015, CINAR is providing funding to
support deployments of storm gliders, rapid profile drifters and rapid
deployable buoys into both tropical storms and winter Nor’easters.
DMAC
(NetCDF)
NDBC
(NetCDF)
GTS
(NetCDF)
In addition to having undergraduate students assist with glider
deployments and recoveries, the Gliderpalooza data were made
available to undergraduate classrooms in real-time during the fall
semester of 2013. During 2014, archived versions of the data are
going to be made available to numerous Community and 4-Year
colleges through cooperation with the Ocean Observatory Initiative’s
Education and Public Engagement team’s (OOI EPE) newly
developed online educational tools (see poster 1761 in session 105,
The OOI EPE Team: Real-Time Ocean Data Coming Soon to an
Undergraduate Classroom Near You, by M. Crowley).
Goal 5: Demo of National Glider Network
During the summer of 2012 a meeting was held at Scripps to discuss
plans for a national glider network. As a result, multiple partners
from federal agencies, IOOS Regional Associations (RAs) of coastal
ocean observing systems, and universities were assembled to develop
a National Glider Network Plan (NGN) for a viable, sustainable, and
reliable network that delivers timely monitoring and distribution of
coastal subsurface data to federal, state, and local governments, as
well as the general public. The plan is structured to develop an initial
network that includes maintaining existing glider lines, acquiring
additional glider lines to fill high priority gaps, and improving data
management, product development, and data/product delivery.
Habitat Suitability Index
Deploy
Dockserver
(raw)
Goal 7: Undergraduate Education
Observed (left) and ROMS ESPRESSO model (right) temperature (top) and
salinity (bottom) following glider BLUE. Inset shows the glider path. In deep
waters a column of relatively warm water delineates the offshore limit of the Cold
Pool.
Glider
In 2013 IOOS secured funding to begin construction of a Data
Management and Communications System (DMAC) specifically for
glider data distribution. A successful goal of Gliderpalooza was to
have real-time throughput of raw data from the gliders to
Dockservers to the DMAC where it was converted to Climate and
Forecast (CF) compliant NetCDF files and then sent to NDBC and
the Global Telecommunications system. This mission will continue to
expand outside the east coast region to U.S. and eventually global
throughput of glider data to NDBC and GTS.
Glider
(raw)
Goal 4: Fall Mixing Storms
Group
Goal 6: Data Flow from IOOS to GTS
Modeled habitats for
species
such
as
Atlantic
sturgeon
(above)
will
be
generated
from
numerous combined
in situ and remotely
Bad
sensed datasets.
The data acquired through Gliderpalooza will also assist with improving bycatch
models for species such as butterfish in the MAB.
2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting
23-28 February 2014
Honolulu, HI
• Persistence allows
climate studies, model
assimilation and for
event sampling
• Gliderpalooza is an
example of surge
capacity on east coast
• A test case for a future
international
collaboration?
OOI EPE’s glider profile analysis tool that will be available to undergraduate
classrooms this spring.
Next Steps
The Gliderpalooza team is having a science and data analysis
planning meeting this week, so stay tuned as we should begin to see
some scientific results in the coming months. Data from
Gliderpalooza are available at:
• http://assets.maracoos.org/ - MARACOOS asset Map, Glider tracks and
data cross sections , model data, SST, ocean color, HF-RADAR,
atmospheric data, drifters, buoy data, etc
• http://gliders.oceantrack.org/ - Ocean Tracking Network Glider Page
• http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/gliders.php - NDBC glider Page
• http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/auvs/ - Rutgers Glider site
• Coming in fall 2014 - Gliderpalooza 2: Glide Harder!
Acknowledgements
In addition to the funding agencies
and partners listed at the beginning of
this poster, we would like to thank
Doug Webb for his futuristic vision,
and, leading us one step at a time
toward ‘changing the world’.